12/23/06 Verizon FIOS Cable Franchise Agreement May Be Ready For Public Comment On January 4th

The Village of Port Chester has been slow to approve the Verizon FIOS cable franchise.

After months and months of negotiations the village says they have a mutually agreeable cable franchise agreement that will allow Verizon to market its fiberoptic service for television programming to residents as a competitor to Cablevision.

The franchise agreement to provide cable competition in Port Chester was to have public comment on December 18th, but that hearing was cancelled at the last minute and rescheduled for January 4th

John Figliozzi from the Public Service Commission will be on hand at the hearing to answer any questions that may arise, he was not available on Dec. 18th.

Mr. Figliozzi facilitated the previous renewal agreement with Cablevision.

This will be a separate public hearing all by itself instead of including it as one segment of a full village board meeting.

Port Chester insiders say that there were still some loose threads with the public access and government access issues which had not been fully resolved.

The village offices will be moving to the former Horton School sometime in 2007, there must be temporary arrangements for equipment to broadcast the local government access channel from their current location in the Rye Town Office Building at 10 Pearl St. for future Verizon cable customers.

When the Port Chester Board of Trustees held a work session with Verizon on Dec. 4.